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Plea bargain keeps Cheney out of court in Nigeria

David Smith

Old colleagues ... James Baker, George Bush and Dick Cheney. Photo: AFP

PORT HARCOURT: Nigeria's anti-corruption police have dropped charges against the former US vice-president, Dick Cheney, over a multimillion-dollar bribery case after the energy firm Halliburton agreed to pay up to $US250 million in fines.

The move followed the intervention of the former president George Bush snr and the former secretary of state James Baker, Nigerian press reports said.

The country's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said it met officials representing Mr Cheney and Halliburton in London last week after filing 16 counts of charges relating to the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in the conflict-ridden Niger delta.

A spokesman for the crimes commission, Femi Babafemi, said: ''There was a plea bargain on the part of the company to pay $US250 million as fines in lieu of prosecution.''

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He said this consisted of $US120 million in penalties and the repatriation of $US130 million trapped in Switzerland.

Mr Babafemi said he expected Nigeria's Attorney-General, Mohammed Adoke, to ratify the decision. ''I can tell you authoritatively that an agreement has been reached.''

Several Nigerian newspapers added that Mr Bush and Mr Baker took part in negotiations through conference calls with Mr Adoke and other officials, but Mr Babafemi could not confirm this.

Mr Cheney's lawyer, Terrence O'Donnell, has described the bribery allegations as ''entirely baseless''.

A spokesman for Halliburton said: ''We have no comment to make on this.''

The Texas engineering firm KBR, a former unit of Halliburton, pleaded guilty last year to US charges that it paid $US180 million in bribes between 1994 and 2004 to Nigerian officials to secure $US6 billion in contracts for the Bonny Island liquefied natural gas project in the delta. KBR and Halliburton reached a $US579 million settlement in the US but Nigeria, Switzerland and France have conducted their own investigations into the case.

Last week the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission charged Halliburton's chief executive, David Lesar, Mr Cheney, and two other executives. It also filed charges against Halliburton, which was headed by Mr Cheney during the 1990s, and four associated businesses.

Halliburton split from KBR in 2007 and has said that its current operations in Nigeria are unrelated. It described a raid by the commission last week as ''an affront against justice'', said its offices were ransacked and personnel assaulted, and pledged to defend its staff against ''completely false and outrageous actions''.

Campaigners in the Niger delta expressed disappointment at the plea bargain. The program officer at Social Action Nigeria, Celestine AkpoBari, said: ''I would have loved to see Dick Cheney in chains in our court and facing justice in our prisons. That would have been a very big point that would have lifted Nigeria out of its woes.''

A project assistant at Environment Rights Action, Kentebe Ebiaridor, suggested that Mr Bush and Mr Baker took part to protect America's huge oil interests in the region.

''They are trying not to jeopardise the relationship,'' he said. ''But if Dick Cheney is guilty, he should be brought to book.''